The YouTube channel called Hardware Unboxed recently talked about the situation on Radeon RX 6800 series. The video covers the topic of non-existent Radeon RX 6800 stock and also about the inflation of prices on its custom models. Cards that were immediately sold out at MSRP were all reference models.
According to the streamers, the retailers would not take pre-orders on the cards. Even if they did manage to do it, the pricing then was simply put horrendous and extremely over the officially suggested retail pricing from AMD. According to sources, AMD has already acknowledged the problem of inflated pricing, and the manufacturer is already working on ‘enabling’ AIBs to achieve the MSRP target within two months.
“We have had a private conversation with AMD. They assured us that in 4 to 8 weeks, there would be AIB cards available at MSRP. They said they enabled the AIBs to achieve the 649 dollars [RX 6800 XT] MSRP, and they expect that to happen within eight weeks,” stated one of the speakers in the YouTube video.
The retailers offering fake MSRP creates a problem for reviewers. The early adopters of the reference’s models were put in a tough spot, as the card’s performance to dollar charts are simply misleading to customers who are unable to find these cards at such prices. One of the reasons for the high pricing of the Big Navi cards could be the limited number of GPU stock in the market. One more prominent reason could be the limited margin for AIBs, and the retailers seem to be taking advantage of this.
